As our nation celebrated its birth this past weekend, watching fireworks and singing along to Hamilton, I found myself struggling to reconcile the ideals America’s Founders proclaimed with the vastly unequal country they constructed.

While recovering from COVID-19 in recent weeks, I reflected often on this tension -- and what it means for the 2020 elections. I am grateful to all who supported our US Senate campaign and allowed me to be a part of this pivotal moment in American politics. Though I lost the primary, I found a renewed faith in America’s highest ideals and in the extraordinary goodness of Georgians from every walk of life.

A reckoning on race -- amid a global pandemic -- has laid bare anew America’s structural inequities by race, gender, class and privilege for the world to see. This crucible moment will test the heart of today’s America. Meeting this moment can bring us closer to realizing America’s promise for all her citizens.

America’s Unfulfilled Promise

To love America is to grapple with the gap between her present and her potential.

Two hundred and forty-four years ago, America’s Founding Fathers outlined a radically progressive view in The Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Founders, however, were deeply flawed men. They failed to live up to these ideals by refusing to enfranchise women, black people, indigenous people, people of color, and the poor who were unable to own land. They dehumanized indigenous peoples and perpetuated chattel slavery.

The structural inequities that plague America today are the compounded returns of these original sins.

A World in Flux

The onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic has exposed shameful racial and geographic inequities in America’s health care and economic systems. From a deadly outbreak in rural Southwest Georgia, to a disproportionate number of black Georgians hospitalized, COVID has underscored the unequal institutions Americans must confront.

COVID-19 further highlighted the need to protect workers’ rights. Grocery workers, truck drivers, and commercial food workers -- many of whom work without a living wage, affordable access to health care, or the protections of a union -- risked their lives to return to work and keep our country fed. Frontline health care workers utilized makeshift PPE when their employers could not provide proper personal protective equipment. Working parents and caregivers juggled homeschooling or a lack of paid sick leave with their responsibilities to make ends meet.

Meanwhile, America’s President shirked his responsibility to lead -- or even be truthful with Americans -- even as more than forty-five million Americans filed initial unemployment claims, and nearly 130,000 Americans died from coronavirus.

An Undeniable Pattern, A Moment of Reckoning

America today stands at the confluence of a pandemic that has disproportionately killed black Americans, and an American policing and criminal justice system that has done the same for generations.

On February 23rd Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man out jogging, was hunted down and murdered by three white men in Brunswick, Georgia. The shooting ripped open Georgia’s -- and America’s -- deep racial wounds. That his killers faced neither justice, nor arrest, until a video of the shooting surfaced months later, shattered any illusions we had achieved equal justice under the law for all Americans.

Neither was there equal justice for Breonna Taylor, an EMT working double shifts amid the pandemic, who was shot to death in her own apartment by police serving a no-knock warrant.

Nor for George Floyd, who suffocated under the knee of a police officer sworn to serve and protect him. For eight horrifying minutes, and forty-six stunning seconds, America watched a handcuffed, unarmed black man plead for his life, beg for help and cry out for his momma, as a police officer’s knee slowly choked the life from his body. Three other officers stood by and did nothing.

America’s four hundred year wound of a nation built with enslaved labor, on lands stolen from indigenous peoples, burst into the streets. Across America and around the world, protestors poured into the public square to demand justice and declare that Black Lives Matter.

As Americans took to the streets, our pain deepened again with the death of Rayshard Brooks, an unarmed black man shot -- in the back -- and killed by police officers in a botched arrest after Mr. Brooks fell asleep in his car at a local drive-through.

The need for deep, structural reform of America’s policing, criminal justice system, and permissive gun laws, is obvious to anyone who would not willfully deny them.

Our Country’s Character in the Balance

For all its merits, America still suffers from a disease more virulent and insidious than COVID-19, a scourge that has stalked our shores for centuries: white supremacy.

This familiar foe, which stood victorious over America’s Founding Fathers, must at last be defeated. Realizing America’s full promise and potential means making all of her people seen, heard and valued.

Now is the time to elect leaders who will redress the pain and trauma experienced by black Americans, indigenous Americans and other people of color in our nation. Now is the time for sweeping changes. We can no longer excuse the silence of white allies, the timidity of faith communities whose doctrines demand social justice, nor the complicity of folks who just ‘aren’t political.’

The moment of reckoning is here, and the character of our country hangs in the balance.

Hope in a Time of Turmoil

As black communities, indigenous communities, and communities of color claim their power in the American idea, allies must walk beside them and join their demands for justice and equity. Uprooting structural inequity by race, gender, class, and privilege, is possible -- but only if Americans seize this moment, together.

This election year, each of us will have a choice: We can vote for new leaders who will move America closer to its greatest ideal, articulated 244 years ago by our Founders, “that all men are created equal.” Or we can regress to the same, broken systems that have left too many families on the sidelines of the American Dream.

Choose wisely.

Gratitude

I will close by conveying my deep gratitude for those who supported our U.S. Senate campaign. Your support enabled us actively to pursue a role in resolving the centuries-old tension between America as it is, and America as I know it can still be.

We ran a positive, issues-driven campaign. We prioritized working families and uplifted marginalized communities. We spoke truthfully. We listened, with humility and an eye toward the kind of world we want to leave our children. We practiced graciousness in a political system that has all but forgotten the word. We did not tear others down to build our ideas up. We took no vote, and no voter, for granted.

We consistently met the moment by speaking truth to the powers that needed to hear it, even when it was not comfortable or easy. We campaigned in a world that is changing rapidly, and the lessons we carry forward from this moment will profoundly shape the world we live in.

I’m grateful for each of you who made such a campaign possible:

Our campaign staff and interns represent what is best in American politics: young folks, full of hope who are willing to work to build a world we can all be proud to leave to future generations. I am so grateful -- and I cannot wait to see what they do next!

Our tireless volunteers and supporters from around the country phone-banked, hosted events, and contributed financially to our cause. From progressive faith leaders to secular activists, from organized labor to CEOs, our campaign knitted together an extraordinary coalition to uplift the voices of underrepresented communities and working Georgians.

Our endorsers, both elected officials and national organizations, provided perspective, resources and kindred spirits in what can be a grueling election process. I am especially grateful to our labor brothers and sisters of the IBEW Local 613, Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 8 Southeast, the Carpenters Union, SMART, and the Communication Workers of America, who proudly endorsed and supported our campaign. I could not have asked for better partners in the campaign we wanted to run.

Our voters from across Georgia contributed to record turnout in our Democratic primary; I am thankful for every vote entrusted to me. From hours-long lines to absentee ballots that never arrived amid a global pandemic, too many Georgians faced hurdles in exercising their constitutional right to vote. We deserve better -- and we will vote accordingly this November!

In August of 2019, we embarked on a U.S. Senate campaign to champion working families through three core beliefs:

1. No one should be sick because they’re poor, or poor because they’re sick. Health care is a human right. Protecting and improving access to affordable health care, including for rural Georgians, must be a priority of our elected officials.

2. America can -- and must -- build an economy that works for everyone. That economic security for working families means protecting the right to organize, and removing deep, structural inequity by race, gender, and class, in our nation’s economy.

3. Protecting the vote and the security of America’s elections is essential to strengthening our democracy and continuing to bend the arc of history toward justice. From ensuring reproductive rights to bold action to protect our environment, progressive policies can only happen when every eligible voter has equal access to the ballot box.

The last year has shown just how critical it is that America achieves progress on these three goals.

I hope you will continue our work, and support candidates who not only believe, but also will invest in these ideals. This November 3rd, join me in making our voices heard by voting. That is our power.

For all their flaws, America’s Founders understood the power of collective action in realizing our country’s greatest ambition – equality among all people. I believe that’s why The Declaration of Independence ends with a promise: “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

This year your vote can ensure that pledge applies to all Americans -- equally.

Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart. I am proud to be in this fight with you, today and always.

Sarah

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